Problem overview:
Awareness and visions: Human development is a process of enlarging peoples choices through the expansion of human capabilities and functionings. Three essential capabilities for human development are for people to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable and to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living. (UNDP) However, the process of enlarging peoples choices should be done in a sustainable manner, meaning, enhancing the capabilities of the present generation without compromising the abilities and opportunities of future generations.
Integrating stakeholders: FAO, UNDP and a number of partner institutions have been putting their efforts together to increase income and food security in Myanmar under the Environmentally Sustainable Food Security and Micro-income Opportunities programme.
Background:
Cooperative efforts for sustainable human development
In response to the decision of Executive Board, UNDP and its implementing partners have been implementing a set of clearly targeted grassroots projects in the areas of primary health care, HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation, primary education, and environment and food security since 1994. These sets of projects constitute the UNDP Human Development Initiative (HDI).
The overall goal of HDI is to impact, in a sustainable manner, on the human development and humanitarian needs of all the peoples of Myanmar. Within this framework, HDI-E, i.e., the second phase of HDI, has the following
Objectives:
- To create a visible and measurable impact on human welfare, in particular of the poor and the disadvantaged,
- To involve communities in the identification, design and implementation of grassroots initiatives of direct benefit of them, and
- To strengthen local capacities required to sustain community-focused development.
The economy in the project areas are predominantly agricultural and thus the income and employment options for the poor are almost exclusively to be found in agriculture, forestry, livestock, and fisheries/aquaculture. Thus, the specific scope of these 3 projects is to widen the range of options for sustainable income opportunities and employment for the poor in the natural resource sector (agriculture, forestry, fisheries, aquaculture and livestock).
While focusing on income-generation, these 3 projects also aim at reducing the pressures on natural resources by:
- improving the productivity of existing land resources in environmentally, financially, technically and institutionally sustainable manner
- incorporating important environmental awareness-raising and environmental protection technology package in all interventions and
- supporting new, non-natural resource-based income earning opportunities.
Improvements in environmental and natural resources management practices are urgently called for in all project area townships, in view of their fragile, vulnerable and already severely deteriorated eco-systems. In sum, these 3 projects are expected to demonstrate the ways to revert the vicious circle of poverty and environmental/natural resource degradation.
Under HDI-E, presently 10 projects are operational in different geographical regions. Among these 10 projects, 3 are under environment and food security cluster and all executed by FAO in the Dry Zone (MYA/96/006), Southern Shan State (MYA/96/007), and Ayeyarwaddy Delta (MYA/96/008). Follows are the objectives of each project:
| Projects | Objectives |
|---|
| The Dry Zone project |
(a) | Enhance an understanding of HDI and project purpose amongst stakeholders and the role of the project in addressing the land degradation process in the dry zone. |
| (b) | Design, implement and monitor the range of technical/economic interventions needed to address the problems of food security, environmental degradation and enhanced income opportunities. |
| (c) | Create an enabling environment to facilitate sustainable development and strengthen local access to facilities and service. |
| (d) | Strengthen the capacities of grass-roots communities to plan, implement and manage environmentally sustainable food security and income generation initiatives. |
| (e) | Identify sustainable best practices relating to food security, income generation and environmental sustainability for replication in non-project areas of the dry zone. |
| The Critical Watersheds (Southern Shan State) project |
(a) | Enhance understanding of the natural resources, with special emphasis on environmental constraints with the view to design land-based (agriculture, forestry, livestock, fishery) food security and income generation activities. |
| (b) | Enhance the understanding and the implementation capacity for a wider range of options for environmentally sustainable income earning and food production activities in agriculture, forestry, livestock and fisheries, either on an individual or on a group basis but targeting in particular the most disadvantaged and poor. |
| (c) | Strengthen capacities of grass-roots communities, and poor and disadvantaged in particular, to plan and implement environmentally sustainable food security and income generation initiatives. |
| (d) | Strengthen local access to critical environmental protection, food security and income generation inputs and services. |
| (e) | Create sustainable food security and income earning opportunities to a large number of the projects area disadvantaged and poor, through direct assistance in the implementation of these activities. |
| The Ayeyarwady (Mangrove) Delta project |
(a) | Improved and sustainable natural environment, essential to protect income and food security and |
| (b) | An enlargement of environmentally sustainable income-earning and food security options and opportunities, an essential-through not sufficient-component in a strategy of preventing unsustainable use of the environment |
HDI has just entered in its third phase (HDI-III) this month (September 1999). Although the information above is basically about the second phase (HDI-E), the development objectives of HDI-III will be basically the same as those of HDI-E as shown above in (a) to (c). All projects implemented under HDI-E will be continued in HDI-III.
Documentation: |
Literature or other written project review references
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Source of Information: |
FAO-RAPR
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Contacts: |
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Submitted by: |
ESCAP
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